Showing results by author "Max Collins" in All Categories

Memphis, 1975. "Raunchy" doesn't begin to describe Max Climer's magazine, Climax, or his all-hours strip club, or his planned video empire. And evangelists, feminists, and local watchdog groups all want him out of business. But someone wants more than that, and has hired a killer to end Max's career permanently. Only another hit man - the ruthless professional known as Quarry - can keep Climer from becoming a casualty in the Sexual Revolution.

Nolan is a pro, a veteran of mob vendettas and decades of high-tension heists. All he wants in his advancing middle age is his slice of the American pie - a way to make capitalism pay without having to drag guns into it. But a bullet-scarred life does not come without its bad karma, and Nolan - and his young cohort Jon, whose own dream is to confine the violence to the comics he draws - often find themselves facing old enemies and new temptations.

When private investigator Mike Hammer accompanies a conservative politician to Moscow on a fact-finding mission, he is arrested and imprisoned by the KGB on a bogus charge. He quickly escapes, creating an international incident by getting into a firefight with Russian agents. On his stateside return, the government is none too happy with Hammer. Russia is insisting upon his extradition, and various government agencies are following him. A question dogs our hero: Why him? Why does Russia want him back, and why was he singled out to accompany the senator to Russia in the first place?

Two nights before the devastating military strike on Pearl Harbor, a young half-Japanese singer is found dead on a Honolulu beach. The murder appears to be a simple crime of passion, but writer Edgar Rice Burroughs - creator of Tarzan and John Carter - has his doubts. The writer’s suspicions lead him and his son Hully to conduct a sub-rosa investigation into the sultry singer’s death. Their pursuit of the killer coincides with rumors of an imminent Japanese attack against the Pacific fleet stationed in Oahu.

It’s 1950 in Chicago, P.I. Nate Heller’s old stomping grounds. But things are different now, and the wind is blowing in a different, decidedly more dangerous direction. Congressman-with-a-cause and presidential-hopeful Estes Kefauver creates the Committee on Organized Crime to put the squeeze on the mob - and anyone who ever associated with them. Heller tries to lay low, but when ex-cop Bill Drury cooperates and mafia moll Jackie Payne sings, Heller finds himself catapulted into the middle of the investigation.

Even the enigmatic hit man called Quarry had to start somewhere. And for him, that was the day he returned stateside from Nam to find his young wife cheating. He'd killed plenty overseas, so killing her lover was no big deal. And when he was recruited to use his skills as a contract killer, that transition was easy, too. He survived in this jungle as he had in that other one - by expecting trouble. What he didn't expect was ever running into his ex again....

In "Dying in the Post-War World", Heller returns from combat to find his marriage in shambles and himself square in the middle of the notorious Lipstick Killer case of 1946. "Kisses of Death" follows the PI into the 1950s, when he is hired to guard Marilyn Monroe. Finally, in "Strike Zone", Heller is hired by baseball boss Bill Veeck to investigate the 1961 murder of a famous pinch hitter whose private life will pull Nate into a dangerous new world of little people and big sins.

Beautiful, homicidal Julie has one lethal solution for every problem. And now Nolan and his sometime sidekick Jon have gotten on Julie's “problem” list. If a pair of out-of-town hitmen can't do the job, Julie will do it herself.

In 1931, Nate Heller - on a leave of absence from the Chicago P.D. - goes to Hawaii to work as an investigator for family friend Clarence Darrow. One of five Honolulu natives accused of the rape of recent bride Thalia Massie has been murdered; facing murder charges are Thalia’s naval officer husband and her socialite mother. Something doesn’t seem right, and Darrow has brought Heller in to get to the bottom of it.

No longer a killer-for-hire, Quarry now offers his services to people targeted by other hitmen. In this case, the assassin is a beautiful woman who may be as deadly at the game as Quarry himself.

Max Allan Collins became Spillane's friend and collaborator, continuing the Mike Hammer series for years after the author's death, building upon unfinished manuscripts the writer left behind. Now, with coauthor James Traylor, Collins has produced the first comprehensive and authoritative profile of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. It is a must-listen for any fan of the author—or of the generations of crime writers that were influenced by his work.

Nolan was still alive; his wounds healed and his money was safe - all $800,000 of it. It was Nolan’s birthday, and he was sitting happy. Until Planner was killed. Planner was an eccentric antique dealer; Planner had the $800,000 in his safe. But now he was dead, and the money was gone. Caught up in the sizzling crossfire of double-dealing, danger, and death, Nolan was up against the “Family” again.

Crime fiction readers know Quarry - the ruthless killer for hire from Max Allan Collins' acclaimed novels - but where did Quarry's story start? For first time ever, the best-selling author of Road to Perdition takes us back to the beginning, revealing the never-before-told story of Quarry's first job: infiltrating a college campus and eliminating a professor whose affair with one of his beautiful young students is the least of his sins.

Los Angeles. The City of Angels. The perfect place for a honeymoon… and the worst possible time for a murder. Vacationing private investigator Nate Heller finds himself a suspect in the LAPD’s investigation of the notorious Black Dahlia murder case. Problem is the butchered starlet, Elizabeth Short, is an old Chicago flame of Heller’s — and only the P.I. himself knows she was blackmailing him for abortion money.

Quarry, star of 13 previous novels, a comic book, and the acclaimed Cinemax TV series, returns in an all-new assignment that takes the hitman's hitman into uncharted territory, when he finds out that for the first time someone has taken out a hit on him. And is the mysterious killer assigned to hit the hitman someone from Quarry's past? Maybe even a past lover?

When a hitman shows up at retired gunman Quarry's refuge, who is the target? Is it Quarry? Or is the assassin on a different mission - and if so, can Quarry foil it for revenge and profit? This audiobook is fourth in the classic hard-boiled Quarry Series from the 1970's.

No sooner do Hot Rod and the Pistons reunite for their induction into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame than two band members take a final bow. Both alleged suicides. A tragic way to go out. A bum way for one-hit wonders to be remembered. But it’s Labor Day weekend. The show must go on. With replacements at the ready, the Pistons are back on home turf to headline the first ever Rock and Country Music Fest. Police Chief Krista Larson and her father, Keith, are there listening. Because they suspect there may be more to the band members’ untimely deaths than anyone else can see.

First there was The Last Quarry, then there was The First Quarry - now look who's caught in the middle.

The enigmatic hit man Quarry - star of seven celebrated novels and an award-winning feature film (The Last Lullaby) - is back in this violent, steamy tale of warring crime families. When two godfathers set out to bump each other off, guess who winds up with both contracts….

Mallory is back and facing a two-fisted whodunit: Who’s responsible for the just-discovered “lost novel” by the celebrated author of The Maltese Falcon? Is it the master, Dashiell Hammett, himself, or a very cunning counterfeiter? And who’s behind the shocking, suspicious demise of Roscoe Kane, a hard-drinking, hard-boiled crime-novel pioneer? Aptly enough, this one-two punch of a puzzle is the talk of Bouchercon, the famed convention where mystery scribes gather to honor (and murder?) their own.

Just when Nolan’s looking for a way out of his dead-end job, trouble comes knocking, and he’s back in business. Someone harboring an old grudge has just picked off Joey DiPreta, a crooked businessman with ties to the mob, and the guy’s family is out to get whoever’s responsible. So is Nolan’s family - in Chicago - and they offer him big bucks and a piece of a swank hotel if he’ll protect their interests.